£125m Set Aside for RBS IT Failure

Steve McCaskill is editor of TechWeekEurope and ChannelBiz. He joined
as a reporter in 2011 and covers all areas of IT, with a particular interest in telecommunications, mobile and networking, along with sports technology.

The contingency fund was revealed in RBS’ first half results, in which it revealed losses of £1.5 billion in the six months leading up to 30 June.

RBS IT Failure

“In late June, a number of our customers were impacted by a technology incident affecting our transaction batch processing,” said RBS. “A full and detailed investigation is under way into the causes of the problem, overseen by independent experts and reporting to the Group Board Risk Committee. It will consider both the Group’s own operations and the role of third parties in the context of the incident. It will establish a full account of what happened, an assessment of how the Group responded and a thorough review of the root cause.”

“A charge of £125 million has been accrued in Q2 2012 in relation to the costs of this incident, principally covering redress to the Group’s customers,” it added. “Additional costs may arise once all redress and business disruption items are clear and a further update will be given in Q3.”